Cars of the Future: 5 Possible Technological Developments That Will Make Driving Safer

Featured article by Jeremy Sutter, Independent Technology Writer

According to an estimate by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as many as 32,850 people died last year in the U.S. in car accidents. As of this year, the number has dropped significantly from what it was in 2005 to 43,510. Yet, the most dangerous thing you do daily is to get into your car.

Like never before, both car manufacturers and governments around the world are currently making advances in improving the safety of cars. The total elimination of car accidents causing deaths most likely will never happen, but perhaps we can get closer. However, we can protect ourselves from taking unnecessary risks such as texting by learning to become aware of car accidents in a defensive driving course.

1. Textalyzer Could Save Lives

Do you believe that texting while driving is currently more of a hazard for teenagers than drinking and driving? At least 3,000 teen deaths yearly and nationwide have been estimated by Cohen Children’s Medical Center to be caused by texting and as many as 300,000 injuries as well.

A first step toward solving the problem of distracted driving that causes car accidents has been made by Cellebrite, an Israeli company. They have developed a textalyzer. This device allows police officers to check the cellphones of drivers who are involved in accidents in order to determine whether the phone was used during the minutes just before the accident.

New York State Senator Terrence Murphy has introduced a bill making these devices standard for police officers. If this bill is passed, we should see a decrease in accidents caused by distracted driving soon. Until it is passed, each of us must do our part. One way to do our part is to paint our thumb with red nail polish to remind us not to text and drive.

2. Communication Technologies

If future cars could not only communicate with other cars in the area as well as objects near them, they could be much safer.

Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communication

A technology to make your car aware of a potential danger of another approaching vehicle has recently been developed. This technology known as Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication (V2V) is being tested by car manufacturers such as Ford. V2V is expected to help by reducing the number of car accidents.

Wireless signals of V2V will send and receive information to and from other cars on the road about their speed, location and direction. This information will then allow the cars to keep safe distances from each other.

A study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration predicts that V2V could reduce car crashes by 79 percent.

Vehicle-to-Infrastructure Communication

Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) will allow communication between cars and traffic signals and road signs and at the same time provide safety issue information to the car. In addition, the V2I would also ask a traffic information system for information about traffic in order to know the best routes.

With both V2V and V2I, car crashes could be reduced by 81 percent according to NHTSA reports.

3. Self-Driving Cars

The idea of self-driving cars isn’t new. Both movies and TV shows have depicted cars that drive themselves. Today, there are cars that actually park themselves. A car that drives itself is far closer to reality than you think.

Engineers of Google in Nevada and California have tested self-driving cars on public roads and highways. These cars record road images, view road signs by computerized maps, discover alternate routes and see traffic lights before humanly possible to be visible. All of this is done through the use of radars, lasers and cameras. Information about a car’s surroundings can be analyzed and processed by the car faster than a person can.

By driving on a road many times, a car was able to learn all the details of a road in Google’s tests. With this knowledge, the car was then able to drive itself on the road. In this way, self-driving cars could eliminate 95 percent of car accidents of today.

4. Augmented Reality Dashboards

An Augmented Reality Dashboard(AR) will not only identify objects that are in front of a car but will also tell you how far your car is from the object. This is done by displaying an information overlay on top of the object on the windshield of the car.

A red box and an arrow appear on the car you’re approaching on your windshield. The arrow also points to the lane next to you indicating you should change lanes before there is a collision with the other car. The lane you need to be in is highlighted and you are shown where to turn. This allows you to maneuver safely without ever taking your eyes off of the road.

5. An Airbag That Stops Your Car

Currently, there are many types of airbags such as knee airbags, curtain airbags, side airbags and seat belt airbags. Currently, Mercedes is proposing and experimenting with a new idea. These airbags are deployed from underneath the car and will stop the car before it crashes and are now part of an active safety system.

As you can see, we are closer than we think to new technological innovations that will make driving safer.